Schwarz Gruppe

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company is actively reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. It has set a target to decrease these emissions by 55 percent by 2030, compared to the levels in 2019, which it openly discloses. Furthermore, the company regularly reports on its progress towards achieving these targets for scope 1 and 2 emissions. These emission reduction goals are in line with a trajectory aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In addition to scope 1 and 2 emissions, the company is also committed to reducing its scope 3 emissions. The targets for scope 3 emissions align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Food loss and waste
The company has set FLW reduction targets that are in alignment with SDG 12.3, which aims to reduce food loss and waste by 50% by the year 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has policies and engages in activities aimed at reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging. Additionally, the company provides quantitative data on the reduction of plastic use and the implementation of sustainable packaging.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that 100% of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognised food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company collaborates with its supply chain to effectively address and eliminate child labour by offering financial support to the affected families. Furthermore, Lidl has partnered with the NGO Save the Children and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on a project aimed at safeguarding children’s rights in the hazelnut supply chain in Turkey, with the ultimate goal of preventing child labour.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company discloses that its retail division Lidl has started working on achieving living wages and incomes in its orange, cocoa, banana and textile supply chains. To assess the gaps, it uses existing benchmarks and proxy methods. In its cocoa supply chain, Lidl works with cocoa cooperatives through its ‘Way To Go!’ concept which has been designed with the farmers. Lidl pays the living income reference price for the cocoa and part of the funds generated from the sales of the ‘Way to Go’ chocolate in Germany are allocated directly to the producers. Also, it facilitates their access to financial resources and supports income diversification.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Moreover, the company includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respecting the health and safety of workers. The company extends this commitment to its business relationships, and reveals its mechanism for monitoring their health and safety performance. Additionally, the company describes how it supports the payment of a living wage by its suppliers and sets an expectation that its business relationships shall not require workers to work more than 48 hours in a regular workweek or 60 hours, including overtime.

Furthermore, the company discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and reports the percentage of its workforce in each employee category by age group and gender.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect human rights and the ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain. Additionally, it describes the process for identifying human rights risks and impacts across its operations and supply chain, and indicates the existence of a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses that it assigns decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to senior management. However, it has an opportunity to strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by assigning decision-making and oversight for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Additionally, it could disclose if the highest governance body has expertise in its most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it can report any (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, water and ecosystem conversion, but could further establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While the company reports against some targets including climate and plastic, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company discloses its Scope 3 GHG emissions and shows an increase form FY 2020 to 2021 i.e.,155,026,640 tons and 158,255,927 tons respectively. However, no evidence found that the company discloses quantitative reductions for its scope 3 emissions. The company discloses its target to reduce its absolute scope 3 emissions in relation to the use of fuels sold by 27.5 percent by 2030 compared with 2019. Although it has a target to reduce its scope 3 emissions, it has an opportunity to report progress against these scope 3 targets.

Food loss and waste
Although the company discloses its FLW reduction target(s), it does not track progress towards these targets.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company’s retail division, Lidl, has set a goal to reduce the sales-weighted average added sugar and salt content in its private label assortment by 20 percent. However, there is potential for the company to improve its reporting on efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and to increase the presence of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains throughout its entire product range and global operations. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to adopt a nutrient profiling system and set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products, aligning with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place. The company has an opportunity to provide an analysis of trends demonstrating progress in relation to eliminating child labour from its supply chain.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
While the company discloses that its retail division Lidl is taking an action-oriented approach to achieving living incomes and living wages within its global supply chains, it has an opportunity to disclose the living income benchmarks it has identified for some commodities and/or regions.

Forced labour
While the company does not allow suppliers to retain workers’ personal documents, it has an opportunity to disclose similar commitments for its operations. Furthermore, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees or related costs in its value chain. To conclude, the company has an opportunity to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Act ethically
While the company states that it has implemented a Compliance Management System (CMS) focusing on areas like anti-corruption, it has an opportunity to explicitly prohibit bribery and corruption and formalize this commitment in a public policy document. Additionally, it could describe its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks within its operations. Furthermore, although the company has a mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns related to the company, it could clarify that this mechanism is open for raising bribery and corruption concerns.

In addition, the company sees itself as a partner of the state, providing expertise to governmental and political decision-makers and actively participating in industry associations. However, it has an opportunity to include its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document. Moreover, it can disclose a policy specifying that it does not make political contributions, and divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it pays the minimum wage to its employees, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage with a time-bound target. Additionally, the company could disclose its process for determining a living wage in the regions where it operates.

Furthermore, while the company advocates equal opportunity and opposes discrimination, it has the opportunity to explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Moreover, it could set time-bound targets and report data, including the ratio of women’s basic salary to men’s.

Respect human rights
While the company claims it conducts annual and ad-hoc risk assessments to identify and assess human rights risks within its operations and supply chain, it could provide more details on the process for assessing the significance of these risks and disclose its salient human rights issues. Furthermore, although the company discloses that it enables remediation if any adverse impacts are identified, it could also disclose a global system to address, prevent, or mitigate its salient human rights issues.